1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of managing systems of servers, such as server farms, and more particularly to a method of and system for dynamically removing, replacing or upgrading servers in a system of servers.
2. Description of the Related Art
As interactive voice response (IVR) products mature from a traditional client/server environment to a more Web-centric architecture, an increasing number of service providers resort to having a managed data center provide IVR services. Managing a Web-based IVR farm of servers includes managing IVR servers, Web servers, and speech recognition servers. As part of management, administrators typically have to upgrade hardware. Examples of such hardware upgrades include adding dialogic cards, adding more disk space, and adding more memory. These changes are generally not dynamic, and removing a server from a network and adding a new one is not an automated process. Removing a server from a network or adding a new one requires careful timing and planning.